INTERNATIONAL

Shares of Telecom Corp. went on sale in New Zealand’s biggest stock offering ever after a big campaign to lure local investors who were badly burned by the 1987 stock market crash. Telecom’s U.S. owners, Philadelphia-based Bell Atlantic and Ameritech, of Chicago, said they would offer about 19% of the telecommunications company to raise about (NZ) $840 million ($488 million U.S.). The 420 million shares will be sold in three equal blocks to investors in New Zealand, the United States and Canada, and on other markets such as Britain and Australia. Telecom will be New Zealand’s second-biggest public company.